It has come to my attention that Revolution Health is currently running an Online Mental Health Fair, with a special focus on reaching college students and their parents. College is a particularly challenging time for students struggling with depression or bipolar disorder because students’ mood disorders are complicated by being away from home and family for the first time. Thus, Revolution Health’s goal is both to raise awareness on college campuses and to help raise money for the organizations who are leading the fight. Revolution Health is making a donation to the organizations for every visitor to their virtual “booths” at their online mental health fair. So be sure to go there and click around!

(More important stuff below the fold)
Additionally, Revolution Health has organized a series of conference calls for bloggers on different mental health topics in order to give these bloggers a chance to chat directly with nationally-renowned experts on their topic areas. Since I have recently been recognized as one of the leading bipolar bloggers on the web, Revolution Health has extended an invitation to me to join them on Wednesday’s (tomorrow’s) conference call.

The featured guests for Wednesday’s call will be Stephen Propst, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, a board-certified psychiatrist and psychiatric researcher at Columbia University. Mr. Propst and Dr. Gerber will be leading a discussion about bipolar disorder and answering questions from participating bloggers. The conference call will specifically focus on what friends and family can do to support loved ones who are struggling with bipolar disorder, though we are welcome to ask questions on other bipolar-related topics as well.

As a further point of interest, this call is being recorded and will be made available to all participating bloggers who wish to share the conversation with their readers. Of course, you know me; I will definitely share this call with all of you.

If you, dear readers, have a question you’d like me to ask, please post it here. If you’d like to send me a few bucks to help me pay for the cost of this phone call (I am using a cell phone, and the minutes $till co$t me money, even if the conference call is on an 800 number), please click on my paypal button on the left sidebar and send what you can.

Comments

One question occurred to me this morning that might be relevant – how do we help people over the stigma of mental illness? It must be difficult to go to your doctor asking for help if you’re bipolar (“So, what is wrong with you” – “I think I’m mad”. Perhaps that could be framed better). And also once a patient is receiving treatment, how do they get over that feeling that there’s something intrinsically wrong with them? Obviously, it would be good to know what the person themselves can do, and also their friends.

It also just struck me that today is Speak Like a Pirate Day. Would it be inappropriate to …

I have a question about chronic depression. I know that depression is a mental illness. But I also know that it is really easy to have some situations bring on a full blown depression that takes a long time to get over.

Where is the line drawn between the illness and one’s ability to handle triggering situations or incidents?

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